The United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) session on December 14 adopted a resolution expelling the regime ruling Iran from the UN Commission on the Status of Women (UNCSW).
The ousting of a government from an international body is result of a massive campaign of gathering evidence and information about the regime’s conduct during the protests of the past three months that Iran has witnessed. It can be argued as a major development since the establishment of the theocratic state in 1979. The violence began with the murder of 23-year-old young girl Mahsa Amini who was arrested for not properly covering her hair, and died as a result of severe blows to her head while in custody of what is known as the Morality Police.
The regime’s expulsion from the UNCSW comes as a motivation to those resisting the regime’s policies in Iran, especially the brave Iranian women and young men of the country. Despite the measures, the regime went ahead with its policy and one of the recently arrested personalities include Taraneh Alidoosti, who starred in an Oscar winning film in 2016.
While the regime went the distance to prevent the adoption of the resolution from being passed, its policies during the past three months along have been too grave to save it from the international scrutiny. The Women’s Commission of the Iranian opposition coalition, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, welcomed this development welcomed ECOSOC’s decision and emphasized that “the regime’s presence in the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), formed to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment, utterly contradicted the CSW’s goals and mandate. The mullahs’ regime is the world’s top executioner of women. It has suppressed Iranian women and girls over their most fundamental human rights.”
Tehran’s rulers and their entire apparatus across Iran have been actively engaged in preventing women through both legal and extra-legal measures, deployed the entire state apparatus to prevent what they term as western influences and “fighting improper veiling”.
It has been pointed out that constitution adopted by the regime is framed and choreographed to institutionalize exclusion of women from leadership roles in the politics or bureaucracy. The regime resorted to defensive measures “in defense of the UN Charter” in its effort to prevent the resolution that led to Tehran’s expulsion from the UNCSW. Their arguments used the provisions of the United Nations and International Law, and revolved around around the inclusion of various cultures and multilateralism being a UN necessity without any accountability to Iranian citizens.
During the ECOSOC debates, aiming to prevent various countries from voting in favor of the resolution introduced by the United States and Albania, the regime’s representatives claimed that this will leave a dangerous precedent to have an official UN member ousted from a body of this organization “based on political intentions”. These arguments, however, were responded to in the speeches delivered by representatives of other states in the ECOSOC session and the resolution text. As a result, with a vote of 29 in favor, 8 against, and 16 abstentions the regime ruling Iran was officially expelled from the UNCSW.
As vivid in the speeches delivered in the ECOSOC session, and as the world witnessed with the resolution’s introduction and voices across the world calling for Tehran’s expulsion from the UNCSW, the recent incidents fastened the process. It appears that the international community will hasten its efforts to pressurize Iran at various other international forums.
The last three months have proven that the regime has zero tolerance left for dissent and it views all kinds of resistance as a western propaganda. There is a fear of mass executions after a young man was Those responsible for four decades of horrific crimes against humanity and genocide in Iran need to finally face justice.